Managing Your Stockpile of Coupons

One of the first things you learn when you begin to coupon is to say good bye to brand loyalty. Big G, Post or Kelloggs Cereal…we like types from each of the brands, so when one brand is on sale we stock up of the kinds we like with in each brand name. Buying what is on sale and combining that sale with great coupons (or better yet–double coupons) is the best way to build a stock pile and reduce your families grocery budget by 50%! But what happens when you have fussy eaters or family favorites? Is all that brand loyalty to be thrown out the window? Not necessarily.

My family is brand loyal ( or at least semi loyal) to a few products, including Sweet Baby Rays, Dawn Dish Detergent and Levis. There isn’t another bottle of dish detergent or BBQ sauce in the house. Levi’s probably count for atleast 50% off all jeans in our household. We are brand loyal to Dawn because I believe it does the best job, is the best value and love the grease fighting power. Sweet Bay Rays-simply because there is no better. And Levis because they are a great quality at a great price and the fit is the best. That is our families opinion…or mostly mine 🙂 since I am the shopper and the buyer!

Cycle of Sales and Seasonal Sales

Couponing/ saving and brand loyalty do not always go hand & hand but it can be done. You will need to plan better and possibly stock pile more. Sales run in an 8-12 week cycle–which means if it is on sale now the next good sale probably won’t be for 8-12 weeks for a specific product. You need to stock up on these products to get you to the next sale. Sweet Bay Ray’s for example does not go on sale during the winter months like it does in the summer. This means that I will have to buy enough this summer to get us through the winter month as well. BBQ sauce is considered a seasonal sale item because most people use it more during the summer months do to grilling. Not our family. We devour it the entire year, whether it be for BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, BBQ Chicken, or Sweet Chili…year round baby!

Stocking Up

Normally if you are not brand loyal you could buy KC Masterpiece this week for say $.50 with coupon and only get 2 bottles because 2 weeks from now there will probably be another great deal on Sweet baby Rays, Webers, Open Pit, Store Brands or another. Therefore you do not need to stock up like you do if you are brand loyal. If there is a great sale & coupon match up you may consider buying many multiples…but please do not clear the shelves! Many other items follow suit as well…there is always a sale/ deal on some name brand of cereal. So you may not need “lots” of cereal in your stockpile because another deal is just around the corner. On the other hand, if your husband only eats Frosted Mini Wheats or Honey Nut Cheerios like mine…you will need to buy enough of these to get through to the next good sale of not only this name brand but this kind as well, which may take longer to come around.

High Value Coupons

Many times the P&G inserts doesn’t have a Dawn Coupon or sometimes it is only $.25. So when there is a $.50 coupon it is time to stock up for us. (and remember to use them on the smallest size allowable with the coupon for the best value-usually, but not always) When you find high value coupons for products that you are brand loyal to you need to get multiples. This can be done in many ways:

1.) If it is a printable…call family and friends and ask them to print it for you. Usually the print limit is 2 per computer….if you have more than 1 computer in the house print from the others too–this may involve high jacking the kids laptop for a bit. Never photo copy coupons–stores will not get paid for photocopied coupons!

2.) Sunday Newspaper insert–When there is an exceptional coupon in the Sunday papers ($1/1 Sundrop 2lt this pst week for us) I start making phone calls. I get a lot of inserts from family & friends…but when there is a great coupon I give them a heads up so that they remember to save them for me.

3.)I have also been know to go to the recycling center and rummaging through the paper bins.

4.) You can also buy multiple copies of the newspapers, but in my opinion that defeats the purpose of saving…I don’t even get the Sunday Paper!

5.) You can also get coupons that you want from Ebay or other clipping services…this way you are only paying for the coupons that you want.

Price Point: Brand Loyalty vs Free or Cheap

This week at festival there is a Free Bottle of Open Pit BBQ Sauce with $5 purchase…yes Free! Did I get it…no, but probably should have since I did buy more than $5 — I could have given it away or donated it. You need to determine your stock up price for your brand loyalty products. This price might be higher than what others pay for similar items. I could get other BBQ sauce for Free to $.50 per bottle quite often but I don’t.

I choose for my highest price for Sweet Baby’s to be $.99/bottle and stock up price to be anything considerably lower than that. And I paid $.89 this week at Festival, rather than getting the Free bottle of Open Pit. So, you may have a higher price point but wouldn’t you rather have something that your family loves than something your family will eat.